Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-08-Speech-1-116"
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"en.20020408.8.1-116"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to thank the two rapporteurs, Mr Oostlander and Mr von Boetticher, for their excellent reports.
The first proposal before us today is a proposal for a financing programme that aims to promote cooperation between the national administrations responsible for implementing Community rules under Articles 62 and 63 of the Treaty. The ARGO programme will supplement the legislative initiatives that have already been launched or are due to be launched on the basis of Articles 62 and 63 of the Treaty. I agree with Mrs Kaufmann in recognising that the programme must be examined along with the legislation, and I hope that we will be able to agree on legislation. However, we must also acknowledge that in areas such as these, European legislation and its transposal into national law are not enough to harmonise practices. A very important area is the practices that the national administrations follow when they are monitoring the external borders, issuing visas or examining asylum applications and immigration issues.
As several of you pointed out, the ARGO programme will replace the Odysseus programme. However, there are considerable differences between the two that need to be very clearly defined. First of all, ARGO is a programme for administrative cooperation. That is why it focuses in greatest detail on the national administrations and the services responsible for implementing Community legislation based on Articles 62 and 63 of the Treaty. It is wrong to claim that these are simply programmes for cooperation between police forces because, in the area of asylum and immigration, there are extremely important tasks which fall to the civilian administration services of the Member States.
In this case – and I must stress this, as it may be an issue on which Mr Oostlander and myself do not agree – the national administrations are the key players in this programme. Indeed, when we have reached agreement on legislation, the national administrations of the Member States will have primary responsibility for applying the European legislation. However, this programme does not rule out the national administrations which receive ARGO funding being able to delegate responsibilities for implementing the programmes in question to non-governmental organisations which propose implementing projects and programmes on the basis of the programme’s objectives.
The legal basis of ARGO not only establishes general objectives, it also defines more precise objectives in each of the following areas: external borders, visas, asylum and emigration. ARGO envisages new forms of action such as the definition of better practices, techniques for collating, analysing and disseminating information and actions in third countries.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that, as regards the monitoring of external borders, the Schengen acquis was split, within the framework of the European Union, with important aspects coming under the first pillar and also important aspects coming under the third pillar. Hence the difficulty in correctly distinguishing between the Community aspect and the intergovernmental cooperation aspect, a distinction that is necessary if we are to target them properly. In any case, I would like to thank Mr Oostlander for the support he has given to the Commission’s proposal and to assure him that we can support, in spirit, many of the amendments that have been proposed, particularly those that seek to strengthen the role of the Community and those seeking to supplement or to strengthen the administrative cooperation objectives. Our priority is to ensure that the Council adopts the programme as soon as possible, so that the Commission can, this year even, launch the procedures necessary for the implementation of the programme and the proper implementation of the budget allocated for this year.
With regard to the second proposal, which relates to the amendment to Article 40 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement, an amendment proposed by Belgium, Spain and France, its objective, as Mr von Boetticher points out, is to grant, under certain conditions, the police force of the Member States the right to continue to keep under discreet surveillance a person suspected of being involved in an extraditable offence if that suspect crosses a border. I hope that this stresses the improvement – which I believe is significant and practical – that this amendment represents for the work of the law enforcement services.
As the rapporteur has noted, cross-border observation is an instrument to maintain public order and safety which, with the removal of common borders between Schengen countries, will become extremely important. I would also like to stress that, whilst the proposed change will facilitate enquiries, it will not change the legal framework applying to them, since the national authorities will, of course, only be able to act within their own national legislation, as well as that provided for by the Schengen Convention. I am sorry, but we have a long way to go before we become a totalitarian State.
To sum up, the two initiatives and proposals before us and on which considerable work has been done by the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs should enable a great deal of progress to be made in areas which I believe are crucial for the area of freedom, security and justice which is gradually taking shape."@en1
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